Students at UC Davis Friday during an Occupy Wall Street non-violent protest were pepper sprayed by police point blank, in the face, and just sat there, passively, and took it.
This video in a few short hours has gone viral and rightly so. This will go down in history as a moment that America realized our police forces are not only para-military forces — and out of control, para-military forces — but they have lost their souls.
Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing calls this video an “iconic, viral emblem accross the web,” [sic] and wrote of the police action, “it’s as if he’s dousing a row of bugs with insecticide.” On Twitter Jardin added, “it’s as if they were bugs to be doused with Raid.”
A progressive well-respected activist on Twitter known as @Shoq writes, “This is how movements grow. These poor UC Davis kids took pepper spray for the team.”
John  Aravosis at AmericaBlog describes this as, “outrageous,” and adds:
I’m sorry, this has gone too far. This has happened in police department after police department, and it has gone too far. Our police look like the goons in Russia and China. Please watch this video and send it to everyone you know. This has gone too far.
I agree. My fiancé and I have been watching the level of violence by police departments across the country rise and become more extreme — and more frequent. We see it here in our hometown of New York City, where the cops’ default attitude is anger and disdain. And we keep talking about that iconic moment in “V For Vendetta” when the citizens have had enough, a cop shoots a little girl, and the people rise up and take control.
While I’m no anarchist, I guarantee that that same day is coming, and fast. I feel it. It scares me, but it’s going to happen. I feel it in my bones. And I feel today’s despicable act sealed the deal with the American people.
The police officer in this video has been identified as UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike. On Twitter, reputable journalists are tweeting his phone number and email address. People are angry, and not only “ordinary citizens,” but those who are charged with reporting objectively these events.